Tabs

Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Indonesia: A short break in Bali

Recollections of American ‘no frills’ airlines with old musty-smelling aircraft and old musty-smelling aircrew throwing bags of pretzels at passengers to go with $5 cans of ‘beverage’ went through my mind as we stepped aboard the AirAsia flight to Bali. It could not have been more different on the Malaysian budget airline which provided a clean, fresh-smelling aircraft with similarly clean, sweet-smelling aircrew. The two-and-a-half hour flight to Ngurah Rai airport was not long enough to induce cramp in the tin-of-sardine seat configuration, so we arrived in good spirits for a few days away from Singapore.

The small resort of Mũ (pronounced ‘Mew’) is a collection of thatched bamboo and grass roofed houses perched on the cliffs at Bingin on the west side of the lumpy bit (as cartographers would say) that sticks out in the south of the island. The sun shone into our hut which looked out to sea as we changed into something that would harmonise with the predominantly French and Australian surfing clienteleThe sky turned a deep red as the sun headed to the horizon drawing us helplessly towards the bar. Dinner was taken with the other guests around a long table which echoed with the sounds of soft European and raspy Antipodean languages. Ahhhh……